A Short Story "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry.

"O. Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi' is a heartwarming tale that captures the essence of love, sacrifice, and the true spirit of giving. Set against the backdrop of Christmas, this timeless story follows the young couple, Della and Jim, as they navigate the challenges of financial hardship with unwavering devotion to one another. With only meager resources at their disposal, they embark on a journey to find the perfect Christmas gifts for each other, ultimately discovering the profound depth of their love through selfless acts of sacrifice. Through O. Henry's masterful storytelling, 'The Gift of the Magi' reminds us of the transformative power of love and the enduring significance of generosity, making it a beloved classic that continues to resonate with readers of all ages."

                           The Gift of the Magi

ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies were saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer, the vegetable man, and the butcher until one's cheek burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times, Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. The next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat costs $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below, there was a letterbox into which no letter would go and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereto was a card bearing the name 'Mr. James Dillingham Young.' The 'Dillingham' had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of 'Dillingham' looked blurred, as though they were seriously thinking of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above, he was called 'Jim' and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go a long way. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many happy hours she had spent planning something nice for him. Something fine, rare, and sterling—something just a little bit near being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a piece of glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art. Suddenly, she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly, she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. Now, there were two possessions of James Dillingham Youngs, in which they both took mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch, which had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the

janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it again—nervously and quickly. Once, she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet. On went her old brown jacket, and on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street. Where she stopped, the sign read, 'Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods. of All Kinds.' One flight up, Della ran and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, and chilly, hardly looked like 'Sofronie.' 'Will you buy my hair?' asked Della. 'I buy hair,' said Madame. 'Take your hat off and let's have a sight, by the looks of it.' Down rippled the brown cascade. 'Twenty dollars,' said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

'Give it to me quick,' said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was raiding the stores for Jim's present. She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a simple platinum fob chain, chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value through substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation, as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it, she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars took it from her, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch, Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. As grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly because of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons, lit the gas, and went to work, repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes, her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
'If Jim doesn't kill me,' she said to herself, 'before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do? Oh, what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?'
At seven o'clock, the coffee was made, and the frying pan was on the back of the stove, hot and ready to cook the chops. Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stairs away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered, 'Please God, make him think I am still pretty.'
The door opened, and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow; he was only twenty-two, burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat, and he was without gloves.
Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It

 

was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
'Jim, darling,' she cried, 'don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again; you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say "Merry Christmas!" Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice, beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.'
'You've cut off your hair?' asked Jim laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
'Cut it off and sell it,' said Della. 'Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?'
Jim looked about the room curiously.
'You say your hair is gone?' he said with an air almost of idiocy.
'You needn't look for it,' said Della. 'It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs on my head were numbered,' she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, 'but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?'
Out of his trance, Jim seemed to wake quickly. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds, let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it on the table.
'Don't make any mistake, Dell,' he said, 'about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut, a shave, or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package, you may see why you had me going awhile at first.'
White fingers and nimbles tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas!, a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat. 
For there lay the combs—the set of combs, side and back—that Della had worshipped for a long time in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with jewelled rims—just the shade to wear with the beautiful, vanished hair. They were expensive combs. She knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say, 'My hair grows so fast, Jim!'
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, 'Oh, oh!'
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly with her open palm. The dull, precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
'Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.'
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch, put his hands under the back of his head, and smiled. 

'Dell,' said he, 'let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em awhile. They're too nice to use at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.'
The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the baby in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no
doubt-wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as themselves, they are the wisest. Everywhere, they are wisest. They are the magi.

 In conclusion, "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry is a poignant reminder of the true meaning of love and sacrifice. Through the selfless acts of Della and Jim, we witness the depth of their affection and their willingness to give up their most prized possessions for the happiness of the other. Despite their individual sacrifices resulting in seemingly ironic outcomes, the story ultimately emphasizes the enduring value of genuine love and the richness it brings to our lives. As we reflect on Della and Jim's story, we are reminded that true wealth lies not in material possessions but in the bonds of love and the willingness to make sacrifices for those we hold dear. "The Gift of the Magi" serves as a timeless testament to the power of love to transcend adversity and illuminate the true spirit of Christmas.